Hi Geff, well done. I have a different issue for you to consider. I would highly recommend painting the roof white. Unpainted gal gets very hot. That makes the bees job that much harder to cool the hive.

I was given some old lids where the paint had long worn off or non existent in the first place. The masonite under the tin was severely warped. I guess that was on account of the heat. I keep that piece of masonite to show people why I like my roofs painted white. Also I measured a 20 degF difference on a warm spring day. I didn’t measure the difference during a hot summer day.

jeff- i agree about roofs- and it has me wondering why people don’t put overhanging roofs onto hives for extra shade on the walls? I have two hives up in the hills that are quite exposed to the sun on hot days- they have white roofs but these still get pretty hot. Last time I visited I put pieces of corrugated white plastic I found on top of them that overhang all the way around just held on with rocks. Also all the hives I made myself are designed with overhanging roofs that shade the front entrance and stop rain from running down the hive walls. I plan to make some simple shades for my other hives also. I’m pretty sure my bees appreciate the extra shade and rain protection and it’s super easy to do out of any old thing you can scrounge.

Thats 4 inputs. Its a Hybrid flow so only needed the 3. Output could be an option I hadn’t considered!
I have a telescopic lid that goes on top of the flat with a curved lid. Mostly its the cold we have to combat?

Jack, I think that you are better off with flat migratory lids painted white. No overhang for wind to catch & no landing pads to catch water. I only use a vertical landing pad. The only protruding landing pads are on bottom boards that were given to me.

I can only talk from personal experience, that’s what works fine for me.

Interested in your comments @JeffH about not having landing pads on the bottom board.
They must have been designed this way for a reason but I just cannot understand why. To me they only act as a funnel to collect rain.
A bottom board that is slightly recessed behind the front of the hive makes much more sense.

Yes I agree with your last statement. I think that a downward facing entrance would be beneficial in cold climates, so that cold wind doesn’t blow directly into the hive.

I couldn’t see the need for landing pads when I first started out. I made the maverick decision to leave them off when I made my first batch of bottom boards, using marine ply. It was more economical to delete them.

I have always looked at bees from a natural point of view, & asked myself what the bees do in the wild.

I have always looked at bees from a natural point of view, & asked myself what the bees do in the wild.

All very good Jeff however bees are opportunistic and in the wild make homes in or on almost anything. It would be interesting to put two identical swarm traps side by side, one with a landing board, one without, and see which one they prefer. Your reasoning makes sense to me but I’m not a bee.
Ultimately we don’t really care what they do in the wild as we want them to fit into our mould anyway, hence swarm prevention and cut outs.

It would be difficult for the scouts to choose which swarm strap to use if they are both identical, assuming that those swarm traps are the best sites within the range that the scouts cover during their search for a new home. I don’t think that the landing pad would make a difference, unless they thought that it made it harder for predators to get into the hive.

I believe that the scouts are looking for a new site to provide adequate room to build a sizeable nest, adequate insulation & also hard for predators to access the hive.

I care what they do in the wild, because I can apply that knowledge to my beekeeping strategies.

I have two diferent types of entrance, one conventional flow type, and the other a round hole about 30 mm diameter. Both have landing pads. The bees tend to fly straight in to the round one, whereas the slit type one they fluff about landing on the pad or above it and then find the entrance.
The guards tend to sit on the pad if there are strangers about.
I can’t decide which is best.

It’s only natural for us humans to assume that honeybees prefer a landing pad that is horizontal with the ground because we walk mostly on a horizontal surface. The fact is that bees spend very little to no time walking on a horizontal surface.

It would be convenient for the bees if they could access their honey while standing on a horizontal surface. That would be impossible to achieve when in fact they collect nectar from flowers in trees while the branches are moving around in strong winds at times.

Once they fill up, all they want to do is return to the hive to unload, do a few waggle dances before going back out for another load. I think that the shape of the entrance is the last thing that a bee would be concerned about.

I’d say it’s a breather pipe as the honey looks to be going into the bucket at the bottom for some reason. Surely this would make transporting the bucket awkward with the tubes attatched!@Geoff_Bell care to comment?